That’s it – I’ve tried to be nice about this – but this is just flat-out absurd:

On the stump this week, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has pushed back against Sen. John McCain’s description of his tax policies.

“The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich,” Obama said in Sarasota, Florida, yesterday. “I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That’s the America dream, that’s the American way, that’s terrific.”

Whoops … WRONG! The American Dream is to live in peace and liberty, free to pursue our own dreams (Free from government thugs melding and interference, beyond upholding rule of law and basic protections). It has nothing, again – absolutely nothing to do with material wealth whatsoever. Since when did the Persuit of Happiness = cars, houses, and all that crap. And this phony-bologna Orwellian concept of “economic justice”…is simply victimization, coupled with jealousy – with a more acceptable name. (Also called – Marxism.)

“The point is, though, that — and it’s not just charity, it’s not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class — it’s that when we actually make sure that everybody’s got a shot – when young people can all go to college, when everybody’s got decent health care, when everybody’s got a little more money at the end of the month – then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money, they decide maybe I can afford a new car, maybe I can afford a computer for my child. They can buy the products and services that businesses are selling and everybody is better off. All boats rise.

What a load of Horsesh*t! It’s not selfish to feel entitled to the wages you earn. It’s selfish to covet what other people have, and set up tyrannical governments with the power to steal from them for yourself. Neither is it “selfish” to believe that I may be a better judge of who I give charity to, than the State. Virtue is earning an honest wage for hard work. Virtue is giving out of compassion – not compulsion! And this isn’t some isolated speech. Here’s Obama in 2001 on what he dresses up in fluffy bunny terms as “redistributive change”:

Seriously – those of you out there waiting for the government handout – how much is your Liberty worth? $3,000-$5,000? You want to grant the State the authority to decree how much is wealthy – and then take it from those that have it by force…? I hope you enjoy your new overlords.

For crying out load – this is exactly how tyranny triumphs…slowly, masked as nice sounding ideas. You victimize a major group of society, a the same time demonizing another group (This is exactly what the Obama camp has done the entire election, and I am sick and tired of beating around the bush. Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Anything, blah blah blah – they are all evil – you should hate their wealth – they stole it from you…), then promise the “victims” riches, in exchange for power. For goodness sake, take a look at history.

And If Obama doesn’t understand the difference between “sharing toys” or “peanut butter sandwiches” by your own free will, and government mandated “sharing” – then, I’m sorry but he just isn’t all that bright.

In a free society, the citizen chooses whether to share his Lego, trade it for some Thomas the Tank Engine train tracks, or keep it to himself. From that freedom of action grow mighty Playmobile cities. Communism is compulsion. It’s the government confiscating your Elmo to “share” it with someone of its choice. Joe the Plumber is free to spread his own wealth around — hiring employees, buying supplies from local businesses, enjoying surf’n’turf night at his favorite eatery. But, in Obama’s world view, that’s not good enough: the state is the best judge of how to spread Joe the Plumber’s wealth around.

Governments. do. not. give. up. power. That was the point of the American Revolution and Constitution – to limit the powers of government and throw off the chains of tyranny.

And look, I’m sure Obama is a swell guy – and electing him obviously isn’t going to instantly transform America into a tyrannical socialist slave nation. But make an effort to understand his underlying philosophy on economics, private property, the role of supreme court justices, etc before you vote for his kind of “change”. His views are far left of center and anything but “moderate.”

Barack Obama: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success too. I think when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.”

Who gives a crap what you want – it’s what you actually do. In this case: punishing success.

Who is “behind you”? What if I worked my butt off to provide good opportunities for my family, kids, or grandkids, and perhaps whoever else I choose. I guess that’s simply not good enough. I need the all-knowing government to come and make me pay for whomever they feel are “behind me” and who likely neither work, nor pay income tax.

In American, peoples inalienable rights and freedoms are (supposed to be) protected by the government from birth. What people choose to do with those rights and freedoms is up to them. They make themselves a success – the government does not (nor could it).

Spreading the wealth sounds good – except for the folks from whom the wealth is stolen to give to others.

“When you spread the wealth around, Senator – it depends on who’s spreading the wealth around. If the wealth is being spread around by individuals making voluntary decisions, whether they be consumers, or producers, or both – you’re spreading the wealth around in a humane and free way. When the Government, like and all powerful mob compels you to give 40, 50, 60 percent of your hard earned income to the mob – to redistribute, based on political and ideological decisions, (which are not always decisions over need, by the way) – That is Tyranny.“

Do you think the left and Senator Obama are bringing something shiny and new to the table that will ‘fix’ everything this year?

What would that be?

…Oh, it’s just Marxism…

again….

Look – I’m not all that super stoked about John McCain, but there is one thing I do know: he doesn’t try to repackage something like Marxism, that has failed repeatedly throughout history – and sell it to the American Public under nicer, prettier sounding rhetoric.

Not to mention – the very idea of taxing ‘the wealthy’ is essentially class based Marxism. The same bull-crap lies behind ideas like ‘windfall taxes.’ How does it promote liberty to grant The State the power to decide when a person, or business has made too much profit – and then to seize that profit by force? (Hillary – “I want to take those profits,” Obama on windfall profits)

People want to tax the crap out of businesses – and then they turn and whine about them sending jobs outside the states?

The wealthy and businesses are the job creators and investors. They make more jobs possible. Take for instance where I work: The small company I work for was recently purchased by a large parent investment company. That investment company saw value in the product we were developing and decided to invest in us. This then, provides us with the funding required expand our staff and create the product we are working on effectively. Their investment is paying the salaries of many many people, as well providing the funding for our technological requirements.

Our business could not function without the parent company’s investment. Laying a massive tax burden on our parent company would clearly have a direct negative impact on my own middle class livelihood – as well as on the customers purchasing the service we provide.

How people don’t see this direct correlation, to me – is mind boggling. Of course – it only follows when you have the media demonizing businesses 24 hours a day, telling you that ‘they’ are the ones holding you down – you should envy ‘them’ – you should vote to destroy ‘them’ – ‘they’ deserve it.

Before you vote for something like that – better find out who ‘they’ are. ‘They’ might be ‘you.’

It’s nothing personal Senator Obama, but I’m afraid I fundamentally disagree with your stirring the pot of class envy. Painting people as victims, in my view – is one of the most destructive and irresponsible things in America politics today.

The best part about this ad is that the left doesn’t even deny it’s true. Here is a little segment from the HuffPo. Note the lack of denial cloaked behind, ‘well…technically speaking…’ bullcrap:

“The claim that Obama voted to raise taxes on people making more than $42,000 comes with a caveat. The Budget Resolution that Obama voted for and McCain now highlights was a provision to allow portions of the 2001 And 2003 Tax Cuts to expire. Taxes would have gone up. But it was not a vote to raise taxes.”

The simple question is – will Obama raise taxes? The answer is yes. And don’t try the ‘only on the rich’ because that is total subjective class based crap. Who gets to decide that, and how is that fair?

“Oh – we’re sorry. We’ve decided that you’ve become too successful. We are now going to steal force you to pay more than other less successful people on the assumption that the only reason you are wealthy is because you somehow exploited people to get there. But don’t get upset, we are doing it for the good of ________________(insert glittering generality: i.e. ‘the children,’ ‘the elderly,’ ‘to save the planet’)”

-you’re friendly governmental tyranny

I know that the ‘Robin Hood’ approach sounds all justified and appeals to some people – but realize that it wasn’t simply ‘the rich’ whom Robin Hood was stealing from to give back to the poor. It was the corrupt government who was taxing the crap out of it’s people, and Robin Hood fought against that tyranny, or so the story goes.

Don’t be fooled. Taxing ‘the rich’ for the benefit of the poor, is bold faced, class based Marxism.

My wife and I worked our freaking rears off to get to where we are today (with some loving help from our parents who also worked their own rears off…). We went to college so that we could get decent paying jobs, and are now paying off our own educations. The idea that the state should have the right to force us to pay more for other people who have not chosen to work as hard, in my opinion, is totally unethical.

What say you? Would you like your taxes raised when you reach a certain level of prosperity defined by politicians?

Windfall Profits Tax = The State decides how much profit a business can make. If they are making ‘too much’ – the State then gets to take that profit away and redistribute it. That’s abject big government Socialism/Marxism wealth redistribution.

Obama conveniently failed to mention oil companies profit margin. Also, he neglected the fact that companies like Exxon Mobil already paid 3 times as much in taxes in 2007 as they made in profits. And finally, these sort of ads seems to be assuming that oil companies only make money for a few sleazy suit-clad men sitting around at a board meeting. What they don’t point out is how many thousands and thousands average joe worker jobs there are in the oil industry.

Speaking of Windfall Profit Taxes, here’s what happened when President Carter tried them:

The Congressional Research Service called it total failure. I guess none of that matters though, because it sure feels really good to tax those evil oil bastards. Here’s a little more on this crap from the WSJ:

The “windfall profits” tax is back, with Barack Obama stumping again to apply it to a handful of big oil companies. Which raises a few questions: What is a “windfall” profit anyway? How does it differ from your everyday, run of the mill profit? Is it some absolute number, a matter of return on equity or sales — or does it merely depend on who earns it?

If Senator Obama is as exercised about “outrageous” profits as he says he is, he might also have to turn on a few liberal darlings. Oh, say, Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett’s outfit pulled in $11 billion last year, up 29% from 2006. Its profit margin — if that’s the relevant figure — was 11.47%, which beats out the American oil majors.

….consider Google, which earned a mere $4.2 billion but at a whopping 25.3% margin. Google earns far more from each of its sales dollars than does Exxon, but why doesn’t Mr. Obama consider its advertising-search windfall worthy of special taxation?

…..The point is that what constitutes an abnormal profit is entirely arbitrary. It is in the eye of the political beholder, who is usually looking to soak some unpopular business. In other words, a windfall is nothing more than a profit earned by a business that some politician dislikes. And a tax on that profit is merely a form of politically motivated expropriation.

It’s what politicians do in Venezuela, not in a free country.

Here’s our good ole’ buddy Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi babbling on about why she won’t allow a vote on drilling:

Gotta love her plan: We will release the Strategic Oil Reserve which will make prices go down…and then what? Not to mention – what happens if we need that oil, for you know – strategeries or something. (Isn’t she basically admitting that it’s a supply problem anyway?) Also – force the oil companies to drill where it won’t be profitable. Like I said before, why not open a tanning salon in the middle of the Sahara while you’re at it and see how that works out? Plus, somehow opening up drilling around the US won’t make price go down in a more lasting fashion than opening up a little reserve tank that we have here in the states?

Like I said before, I don’t think ONLY DRILLING will solve the problem. But I do think we need to do everything possible to fix the problem.